


Grappling with the Grief of Living

by HopeStoryteller



Series: Starchasers [11]
Category: Warframe
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fortuna Has My Heart And Isn't Letting Go Anytime Soon, I know it's a rarepair to end all rarepairs but bear with me please, Pining, Rescue Missions, Technically Canon Compliant Anyway, it's mostly pining anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 09:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21967126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeStoryteller/pseuds/HopeStoryteller
Summary: “We all have off days,” Eudico says in explanation. “She’ll be back when she can.”A coolant-colored warframe with a giant ring on his back raises his hands to sign something, but apparently thinks better of it, and turns to the other beside him, evidently having a conversation on some private comms channel.It's just a regular day in Fortuna. Tenno are wandering the Vallis, causing all kinds of mayhem and generally giving Nef about seventy migraines. All things considered, it's a decent day for Solaris United, and a decent day for Eudico, too. (At first.)
Relationships: Eudico/Ticker
Series: Starchasers [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1243595
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30





	Grappling with the Grief of Living

Eudico can recall a time before Fortuna, if she tries. She doesn’t remember what her mother did before Fortuna, although considering where they’d ended up she’d probably worked for Nef even before. She doesn’t remember another mother or a father, or any parent at all.

She does remember, faintly, what might have been the unfriendly hallways of a Corpus ship. She remembers crew quarters, although what her mother did on the ship always slips her mind. She can’t ask now. She hasn’t been able to ask for many years now.

She isn’t even entirely sure how long it’s been. She’s definitely getting old, though. It used to be a lot mucking easier to squeeze through the vents. 

“Roky, Boon,” she greets as she enters what they’ve dubbed the clubhouse.

Maybe calling what she does ‘entering’ is a little generous. Maybe it’s a lot generous. Maybe navigating the vents is extremely difficult for anyone taller than about a meter and a half and wider than the average ventkid. Maybe what actually happened was that she tripped on her way out.

Roky spins the board next to her, raises an eyebrow. “Cheknah, Eudico, you miss the sign?”

The sign in question was impossible to miss. So no, no she didn’t. It would have been hard to miss even if the ventkid sitting atop it hadn’t whistled to get her attention, cleared their throat, and pointed at it meaningfully. 

“I’ll put it back later,” Eudico says. “We have a problem.”

“Wouldn’t come hang logical if ya didn’t,” Boon points out. “Howzit?”

He’s not _wrong_ , most of the time they wouldn’t need a sign reading _VENTKIDS ONLY_ to keep her out of the vents. Next time something like this comes up, she’s sending one of the Tenno. They’re much better at getting in and out of tight spaces. Some of them are essentially ventkids themselves.

For now, though, Eudico is here for a reason, and the sooner she deals with this the sooner they won’t have to deal with her and they can all get back to business as usual.

“The mercs Nef’s been putting together? Soon. Don’t know exactly how soon, next few cycles for sure.”

“Know anything about the merkmerks?”

“Officially, no.” 

Which of course means _unofficially, yes,_ so she continues by saying, “There’s been a high-security crew transport authorized to land at the Spaceport from Neptune next cycle. Nobody below Nef is supposed to know about it, and I don’t know for sure what’s on it, but from what whispers I’ve heard? You might want to lay low for a bit.”

“That’s the biz you got? Suckin’ wind,” Roky says dismissively. “Ya hang logical, ya can handle a few null-units.”

Boon shakes his head. “Neptune,” he points out. “The Index, chek?”

“Chekchek. Those merkmerks wouldn’t know flair if it left ‘em in a vapor trail. Terminal speed, can’t net us up, can’t tax us up, can’t scope the vents. Hear ‘em coming.”

“The mercs Nef sends to the Index aren’t trained for Vallis operations,” Eudico says. “They’re being brought here for something in Fortuna, something covert, and I have it on good authority that it doesn’t involve Solaris United.”

Not unless he thinks he knows something big, or—and this is terrifying to consider, but a very real possibility—actually _does_ know something big. But odds are that Nef, at a stalemate with his old nemesis Vox, is turning to other enemies at the moment.

Also: when it comes to Solaris United, this just isn’t his style. It’s a constant back-and-forth, the latest incidents involving Nef, thermia fractures, and that _mucking_ Exploiter Orb. She tries not to think about Exploiter if she can avoid it.

“Klokked we helped with Profit-Taker?”

 _“You_ helped with Profit-Taker, logical bro. Your problem.”

“I don’t think Nef distinguishes between ventkids,” Eudico says. “I’m not convinced he distinguishes between the rest of us.”

Roky looks at Boon. Boon looks at Roky, who starts tapping her foot impatiently. Boon makes a face. Roky rolls her eyes.

“Warning’s dog,” Roky says at last. “But scope it clean, we ain’t letting Nef gutterball us.”

Eudico nods. She hesitates for the briefest of seconds, then adds, “I’ll send someone over if I get anything solid.”

The kids nod to each other, turn away from her, and Eudico gets the distinct feeling she’s overstayed her welcome by about three minutes.

She’s been here for about three minutes.

* * *

“Send Sparky next time,” the sentry says, setting the sign back into place. “She’s dog.”

Eudico definitely overstayed. She’s also definitely getting either too old, too tired, or both to crawl through the vents, and she really doesn’t have the time or energy to argue this. So she just nods wearily, and makes her way back to her post to check on things.

Officially, she’s checking on Solaris workers out on the Vallis. So she does that first, and then looks at some operatives also doing valuable work, just not the kind Nef or any of his taxmen want. Teams check in, all her Solaris seem to be doing fine.

So, she goes to the Tenno. There’s more than a few teams working hard to seal lingering thermia fissures, probably why there’s so little pressure on her SU operatives, and she’s damn glad of that. Biz has a few of his scattered across the Vallis, tracking and tranqing and all that. There’s a couple lone Tenno doing their own things, mining or servofishing or something.

Sparky’s signal is currently going in circles around the Pearl. She’s a little too fast to be on foot, and a little too slow to be on one of those archwings the Tenno use. K-drive, probably ventkid things. Whatever she’s doing, it’s causing trouble for the taxmen. Which is good. 

Actually, from what recent surveillance footage she can access, the taxmen are spread pretty thin at the moment. Eventually, Nef will have to decide what he’s willing to put more forces into stopping, but until then everyone has an easier job than normal, and the pressure on Nef just keeps increasing.

But if things get too easy, people will get sloppy, and nobody can risk that. So she sends out a quick reminder to that effect.

By now, there’s a few other Tenno around, so she offers them their pick of bounties before they all head out. Tenno to the Vallis, and Eudico to keep an eye on what’s going on in Fortuna.

The plan is to drop by Ticker’s shop first, but the place is closed, shuttered, and there’s no sign of her. Strange, but they all have off days, and the next ‘surprise’ inspection isn’t for a few days so Eudico shouldn’t need to cover for her.

She still sends Ticker a quick ping asking if everything’s ok.

 _Fine,_ the answer comes almost immediately. Nothing else.

Internally, Eudico frowns. Bad day, then. Happens to everyone. Covering for her won’t be hard.

 _Let me know if you need anything,_ she messages back, and lingers in front of Ticker’s spot. 

No answer this time. 

Eudico waits a little longer anyway. She shifts position some, taps her foot, tries not to look impatient. She glances down at the floor.

There’s something there, some kind of dark fabric against the lighter floor. Eudico kneels to pick it up, finds it’s a glove. Faded, worn, clearly well-loved. Probably not Ticker’s.

She tucks it into her belt, then heads out. She’ll ask around later, see if anyone’s missing one.

* * *

Legs is rhyming away, laughing and joking with her and anyone else who’ll listen as usual. Joking more than usual, actually. He won’t admit why, but he doesn’t need to. 

Lose a limb, you still feel it sometimes. Eudico does. Legs lost a lot more than most, definitely a lot more than even Eudico did. And he’d been fully conscious when it happened.

_Frost and fire and death. Her rig’s not responding. Nothing’s responding. Air filter’s clogged. She can barely breathe. She can’t move. Everything hurts, everything except one of her legs below the knee. There, she can’t feel anything at all._

_She drifts back into unconsciousness. At least there she can forget, just for a little while, what she’s done._

Eudico shakes her head to herself, mumbles something along the lines of telling Legs to take it easy. As easy as any of them can. She makes a mental note to drop some painkillers by later, and tries not to think too hard about the circumstances that had gotten him like this.

“Eudico, you okay?” He hesitates. Adds, in a smaller voice, “No?”

The MOA next to him cocks its head. For an actual robot, and a reprogrammed taxmen proxy, it looks remarkably concerned. There’s a reason the Tenno give him so much business for MOAs, and the personality is probably it.

Which is great for him! But really not helping Eudico at the moment, because the MOA is this close to making her spill.

“It’s fine,” Eudico says. “Bad memories.”

The bad memories part isn’t a lie, anyhow. Legs looks suspicious, so she makes a not-entirely-excuse about having to get around to everyone before anyone misses her and moves as quickly as she dares.

* * *

Zuud is… Zuud. Putting together kitguns better than ever, doing a lot better now that Exploiter’s gone for good—everyone is—and she’s finally remembered her sisters. At this point, Eudico’s pretty sure that what Zuud calls Chatter is what’s still left of them. 

For her part, Zuud confirms that she’s doing alright, as alright as anyone can down here, and is absolutely up for girls night. Which is good. Everyone needs to destress sometimes, Eudico knows that as well as anyone.

But nobody would have the time to destress if Nef had his way. Everyone would be a lot less stressed if it weren’t for Nef. Thinking like this, it’s easy to forget that if they managed to assassinate him, the power vacuum would result in something worse. Endgame isn’t to destroy him, it’s to keep him there in name with the Solaris in control of Fortuna once more. Much easier said than done, but—achievable, in the not-too-far future. Especially with the Tenno helping them.

Eudico considers asking Zuud if she minds inviting Little Duck and Ticker, but ultimately decides against it. LD prefers spending her free time alone, and while normally, she’s sure Ticker would accept, it’s clearly a bad time.

* * *

Ticker’s front is still vacant. But there’s a couple of confused-looking Tenno in the area, and both of them are already looking to Eudico for answers.

She doesn’t think any of the Tenno besides Sparky know who Vox is behind the transmissions. But sometimes she wonders. Then she reminds herself that she does mission control for nearly every Tenno op on the Vallis, so while it would be one hulking kubrodon of a problem if any of them were compromised, they’re just deferring to her for that. Nothing more, and nothing involving Vox.

(With the notable exception of Sparky, of course—but Sparky has more than come through when it counted. Eudico trusts her with her life.)

“We all have off days,” Eudico says in explanation. “She’ll be back when she can.”

A coolant-colored warframe with a giant ring on his back raises his hands to sign something, but apparently thinks better of it, and turns to the other beside him, evidently having a conversation on some private comms channel.

Eventually, he turns back and signs, _“Thanks. When you see her, let her know Hermes and I have the supplies she wanted.”_

Eudico nods, and the Tenno walk off. The coolant-colored frame takes the ring off his back and throws it at Hermes. Hermes throws it back.

She lingers again, begins to draft a message.

_Hermes and…_

It takes her a few moments to remember exactly what the other goes by, but eventually she inputs, _Hermes and Flash say they have the supplies you wanted._

 _Thanks,_ Ticker’s reply comes. Nothing else.

Eudico gives the shuttered storefront one last glance before continuing her rounds.

* * *

“Hello, hello, welcome to my humble place of business which is of course _completely_ legal!”

Eudico gives Smokefinger a look. Be Solaris for long enough, and you find that even metal headpieces can convey a surprising amount of emotion. Such as the exasperation she’s currently directing at Smokefinger.

“Please tell me you don’t tell Nef’s people that,” Eudico tries without much hope.

“Course not. All they want is data, make sure we’re sticking to our mucking quotas. And Solaris miners, of course, are. They don’t need to know what our friends in bright colors are doing.”

Friends in bright colors is… certainly an accurate description of the vast majority of Tenno. It explains why the idea of stealth many of them have is can be summed up with _shoot everything before anything can raise the alarm._ There’s a reason Eudico offers incentives for them to not do that.

“Unofficially, what _are_ our friends in bright colors doing?”

Quite a lot, apparently. The way Smokefinger tells it, he’s sparked in them a love of mining and shiny rocks. Eudico’s pretty sure most of the Tenno humor him because they need the materials for other things.

But they do drop their surplus minerals by and there’s more than a few minerals and Tenno doing it. So, maybe some of them do enjoy it. Good for them, good for Smokefinger, good for Fortuna.

* * *

“How is…” 

Eudico motions vaguely to the dusky-headed virmink curled up in the corner of Biz’s storefront. It’s been here for some time, actually. She’s beginning to wonder if this particular one is going anywhere, but she knows better than to expect a straight answer if she asks.

“Conservation?” Biz asks. “Going well. If you consider that in many cases our only option is to re-release back onto the Vallis with a tracker and send someone to bring them back in if they stray too close to the bloody Corpus.”

So not going that well at all but Biz won’t be caught admitting it.

“Good to know,” Eudico says. “Let me know if you need me to send someone out to trash some traps anytime soon. How about the servofish project?”

“Much better. Had a few incidents recently where some Tenno fresh off Earth used the spears from Cetus and unintentionally damaged servofish before they could bring them in. Don’t know who sells fishing gear there, but I’d like to have some words with them. It’s not my contact in Cetus, that much I know. But I’m getting off on a tangent.”

Biz shakes his head to himself, and adds, “Beyond that, it’s been going well. My conservation team certainly doesn’t mind being kept on jobs closer to home.”

“Good to hear.”

The virmink in the corner raises its head, looks at Eudico, and makes a snuffling noise. It starts to rise to its feet. Biz glances over.

“Ruby, stay,” Biz says gently but firmly.

The virmink settles down again, but doesn’t take its eyes off Eudico. For her part, Eudico asks, “Ruby?”

“I wholeheartedly blame Smokefinger. He calls her Ruby one time, and it’s all she responds to. It’s not even an accurate name, rubies were said to be red and look at her.” Biz sighs. “She was supposed to be released.”

 _Supposed to be_ implies that Ruby the virmink isn’t going to be released. Biz’s usual reasoning for why nobody outside his conservation crew is allowed to handle any of the animals brought in is that they need to retain a healthy fear of people to survive in the wild. But…

Biz must know her too well, because he adds, “Yes, you can pet her, but don’t advertise it. Just be careful and don’t spook her. Last time that happened, she bolted. It took me and two Tenno an orbit-hour to coax her back.”

Eudico nods, scoots in, and crouches down to Ruby’s level. Carefully, she holds out a hand for the virmink to sniff. Ruby sniffs her briefly. Then, apparently satisfied, she licks Eudico’s hand. With her other, Eudico reaches in. It occurs to her as she’s petting the virmink that she’d never actually petted one before, or even been in close proximity to one. She had, however, heard that virminks had very, _very_ soft fur. That much is very, very true.

“You’ve been holding out on us, Biz,” Eudico says wryly. She’s only half-joking.

“In most cases, it’s imperative for us to minimize contact with anyone,” Biz replies. “This isn’t most cases. There was another virmink sighted in the area, a white-breasted one, probably her mate. We’ll need to bring that one in too, but haven’t found him yet.”

Humming to herself, Eudico gives Ruby a last couple pets and stands. As she does, something dark hooked on her belt comes loose, falling silently but not unnoticed to the floor. She audibly sighs and kneels down to pick it up again.

Before she tucks it back in her belt, more securely this time, she asks, “Anyone you know missing a glove?”

“Odd question,” Biz notes. Eudico shows him the glove in response. “I don’t believe so. Where did you find it? It’s entirely possible that whoever lost it returned there to look for it.”

“In front of Ticker’s shop.” Eudico gestures vaguely up to emphasize her point—Ticker’s storefront is almost directly above Biz’s, after all. “She’s having a bad day, didn’t want to bother her about it.”

For the entirety of their conversation, Biz had been working diligently to dismantle some kind of servofish that looked distinctly Orokin. He’s not now. He’s stopped short, clippers poised to snip an exposed wire but not yet snapped shut.

He lowers the clippers without severing the wire and asks, “May I see that for a moment.”

It’s not a question. Eudico hands it over, does her best to squelch the sinking feeling in her gut and isn’t very successful.

“It’s not hers,” Eudico says anyway, as if saying it will make it true. Then again, saying it won’t necessarily make it untrue either. Not if it’s not already. “I don’t think it’s her size.”

Eudico really, really wishes she was more sure than she is. She’s getting less and less sure with every moment that passes now.

“It isn’t her size,” Biz says, “but it’s hers. She wasn’t there?”

“No. I sent her a message asking what was up. She said she was fine, just…”

“Having a rough day?”

Eudico nods. That was the implication of the words, anyway. Or what she’d thought the implication of the words were, unless—

“I… wasn’t talking to her,” Eudico realizes aloud. 

Ticker’s in trouble, if she’s still alive and hasn’t already been shelved. But Nef will have wanted to make an example out of her. She wouldn’t have just been shelved.

Problem is, if Nef knows about Ticker—what else does he know? _Who_ else does he know?

Standing around feeling guilty won’t help anyone or anything. So, Eudico takes a deep breath, and says, “Backroom in five. We’ve got no time to waste.”

* * *

“The good news is, they don’t seem to have found Ticker’s connection to Solaris United, or we would all be in trouble, and thanks to some Tenno surveillance we know where she is.”

“That’s the good news?” Little Duck asks, more than a little incredulous. 

Eudico filled her in while waiting for Biz to get here. LD reacted about as well as Eudico expected, which is to say with enough vehement swearing to make the most hardened rail agent blush.

“Not how I would have put it,” Eudico says.

“The bad news,” Biz continues anyway, “is that whoever is answering our messages is definitely not her, she’s slated for total repo in the next two orbit-hours, and we don’t know why she was brought in if it wasn’t in connection to us.”

“We’re all careful with our payments, so she can’t have been picked up for being behind. She was already working against repossession before Solaris United was back, so maybe they picked her up for that.”

 _Or we’re all dead and then some,_ Eudico doesn’t say.

“But they have nothing to connect her with Solaris U,” Little Duck says. “Right?”

Eudico freezes. A pair of Tenno waiting outside Ticker’s storefront come to mind, and… the message she’d sent about them, presumably to Ticker. But if Ticker hadn’t gotten it, and someone else had…

_Shit._

“SU directly, no. But they know we work with the Tenno. I sent her a message about a couple of Tenno waiting for her. Didn’t call them Tenno, at least, but it’s not hard to clock I wasn’t talking about other Solaris. If they know she works with the Tenno, and they know we work with the Tenno…”

“This just keeps getting worse.”

“Our perception of it does, at least,” Biz points out. “But that means we can’t risk sending any of our agents out. It has to look like there’s nothing wrong inside SU or they’ll have more than just circumstantial evidence. The Tenno I have out on the Vallis have comms turned off at the moment, and neither of them will be getting back in time.

“Most of mine are off-planet dealing with Tenno business.” Eudico makes a mental inventory of who _is_ out at the moment, and adds, “None of the ones on the Vallis are close enough.”

Or stealthy enough, for that matter—the Tenno might be mythical warriors of legend but most of them are mucking terrible at stealth. Most of them have yet to clock that going in guns blazing, while effective, doesn’t quite work when you don’t want the taxmen knowing what you’re up to. At least Solaris United’s field operatives understand that much.

“You know,” LD’s voice takes on a thoughtful tone, “central maintenance isn’t that far from Fortuna.”

Eudico knows that, of course. Not where she’s going with this. Unless—

“No,” she says flatly. “It’s too risky, we wouldn’t get there in time, and the most substantial firepower I have on hand is a welding gun.”

“More than what I’m willing to use,” Biz says.

Little Duck pretends Biz isn’t there. “Do we have a better option?”

* * *

“Let me know what you’re up for, and I’ll get Eudico on the—“

The agent stationed just outside Fortuna gives a second look to who just emerged from the lift. Namely, Eudico herself and someone trying very hard to not be recognizable as Little Duck.

“Or… not,” he says helplessly. “Eudico. Hi. What can I do for ya and…”

Little Duck shakes her head. Her hood’s already up, for all the good it does. Eudico considers pointing out that only people who want to hide something wear hoods, and most Solaris don’t. It doesn’t really help her disguise.

“Your friend who definitely isn’t one of the taxmen’s most wanted,” the agent continues. “Can I have your autograph?”

Little Duck makes an amused noise. “Maybe later. Got an op to do.”

Eudico clears her throat and says, “Get the medics on standby, but keep it quiet. Anyone asks, we never talked, I’m in Fortuna, and she’s… void knows where.”

“I hear Cetus is nice this time of year.”

“And patch me through to Biz.”

The agent nods. “Copy that. Be lucky.”

* * *

Detention cells meant for pre-repo Solaris are scattered across the Vallis, always in close proximity to some kind of taxmen base, and always tricky to get people out of. Usually, Eudico has a Tenno or four activate the opening sequence prematurely, then hold off the taxmen until the zappers open and everyone can leg it.

Slight issue: Eudico doesn’t have any Tenno at the moment. She’s got herself and Little Duck in the field, Biz on comms from back in Fortuna, and possibly Ticker once they get her out and assuming she’s not too badly hurt and they can steal a gun.

Slightly bigger issue: Eudico can’t risk being recognized. Her particular headpiece isn’t the most common one, but it’s not uncommon enough that she’d be recognized immediately on sight. Still, it’ll raise some questions she can’t easily answer if a SU agent is sighted with a physical resemblance to her, so they need to do this as quietly as possible.

A transmission from Biz flickers into life on the side of her vision. Eudico exchanges glances with Little Duck, receives a nod in confirmation. She’s getting this too.

“There’s less guards than normal, but more than we hoped,” Biz says. He displays a minimap for both of them, as well as some blinking dots on it. “Four of them, a couple proxies. Deal with them quietly, and you’ll have until you open the gate before reinforcements are on their way.”

“I’ll take the farther two guards, I’ve got a silencer on my rifle,” LD mutters, briefly all business. She pats Eudico on the shoulder, then slips off into the snow for a better vantage point. As she does, Eudico hears her continue, “Y’know, Biz, I thought you were against killing these days.”

“That’s why I’m here, and you’re out there.”

“Void is that supposed to mean?”

Eudico clears her throat and says, “I’ll get the other two.”

It’s not a question. With that in mind, she hefts her welding gun, considers how heavy it is. Shooting with it is, unfortunately, too loud. But, it’s more than heavy enough to deal some damage if she slams it into a taxman’s helmet.

Solaris United lift together. The taxmen don’t lift at all, and it shows.

One of her two, the closer guard, is turned away, and toward the holding area. He’s muttering something on comms, which means they need to wait until he’s _off_ comms or they’ll all have to leg it a lot quicker and sooner. The second is tinkering with a MOA, while there’s a shield osprey standing guard in between the group she said she’d handle, and the group Little Duck’s going to handle.

It must have snowed fairly recently. The snow dampens her footfalls, and she takes full advantage of it. Close, but not too close. Close enough to hear what the guard is saying—

“Yoky pkap. To yijt ot tetepy.”

—but not quite close enough that he can hear her.

_Copy that. No sign of rebels._

Shit. At the very least, they suspect something. At worst… Eudico doesn’t want to think about it. Unfortunately, it’s her job to think about the worst and prepare for it.

At worst, Ticker’s dead and the taxmen know everything she did. Does. The worst can’t have happened yet. It hasn’t happened yet and it’s not going to. They wouldn’t have guards if it had.

Unless they’re planning an ambush.

Eudico double-checks that she’s muted to the outside and says, “Something about this isn’t right. Minus the obvious.”

“Agreed,” LD cuts in, “but we can handle that once we’re not freezing our bits off out here. Biz, how long until it warms up?”

“Warm period ended while you were in the lift. Next one isn’t for ten minutes,” Biz reports. “Not that it’s _that_ much warmer, but—”

“Yeah, yeah, every little bit counts when you’re all but frozen to your shooter. Ready whenever you are, Eudi.”

“Waiting for this mucker to get off comms,” Eudico says in explanation. “Can only hear his side of it.”

“I’ll do my best to patch myself in,” Biz offers. He definitely knows her too well.

“Let me know what you get.” An idea occurs to her, and she adds, “Could you fake a check-in?”

“We’ll find out,” Biz says, which isn’t very encouraging but isn’t an outright no. 

“Utpetypoop,” the crewman says into the cuff of his armor. “Ktiyotet jipp te petsitapep toj.” He switches off the comms link.

One moment, Eudico’s gripping her welding gun a little tighter. The next, she’s slamming the business end of it into his helmet with a grisly _crunch_.

Needless to say, the now very dead crewman drops like a stone, except far less neatly. So more like a wrench off the upper levels of Fortuna, minus the loud clattering that always accompanies it.

She must have been closer than she thought, or just moved faster than she meant to. Or something. 

Little Duck lets out a low whistle. “Wow, Eudi. What did that mucker say?”

“Nothing important.” 

The lie comes easily. But somehow, Eudico gets the feeling that Little Duck doesn’t believe her. She hastily adds, “Biz, are their comms down?”

“I’m in. One localized comms blackout coming up.” Brief silence from Biz, before he confirms, “They’re down. Go.”

One of the crewmen LD said she’d handle drops, then the second. A well-aimed bullet tears through one of the osprey’s wing joints, causing it to careen to the left and crash into a parked coildrive. The MOA the final crewman is handling starts to chirp an alarm.

Eudico is no sniper, but her aim isn’t anything to sneeze at. Never has been, and while a welding gun is far from ideal, anything fired at a high rate or a high temperature is effective, and an unmodded welding gun technically does both.

Their comms are down, and it’s with that in mind that Eudico swaps targets. The MOA crumples, and she points the gun at the last guard.

They tap their wrist frantically, trying desperately to connect to a comms system they won’t connect to in time. Eudico would feel bad if she didn’t remind herself that this is someone who believes Nef’s lies and, more importantly, acts to carry them out.

“What’s she in for,” Eudico asks, keeping it short and simple.

She doesn’t get an answer beyond a glare, and then they can’t answer her at all. Eudico doesn’t dwell on it. There’ll be plenty of time for that later, back in Fortuna where everybody’s safe and she can afford to second-guess herself.

Instead, she starts over to the building. Little Duck waves at her from a perch atop it.

“Biz, what are our options with getting the gate open?”

“I’ll get back to you in a minute,” Biz replies.

Eudico sighs. “Right. LD, keep watch. I’ll check on Ticker.”

“Copy.”

Eudico heads inside. It takes a moment for her optics to adjust to the dimmer lighting, but once they do there’s two important things she needs to keep in mind.

One, Ticker’s the only Solaris in here, the only prisoner even. Which means the taxmen were definitely going after her specifically, which means problems.

Two, Ticker recognized her instantly.

(Also, there are very deadly lasers keeping Ticker in here, but that kinda goes without saying at this point.)

“Hey,” Eudico says, because that’s obviously what you’re supposed to say in this situation.

For a long few moments, Ticker just looks at her, slumped against the wall, only movement being that of her headpiece. Then she clears her throat awkwardly. “Eudico?”

“Last I checked.”

“What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here, I know I blew _my_ cover but following Ticker’s example there is touching but also a very, very, _very_ bad idea. Please tell me you didn’t.”

“As far as any of the taxmen know, Floor Boss Eudico FB-9 is in Fortuna same as ever.”

“Cept for those ones,” Little Duck points out. “If they recognized ya. And they’re super dead so it doesn’t really matter.”

“Good point.”

Ticker gives Eudico a look, asks, “Are you still talking to me?”

Eudico taps the side of her headpiece in the universal gesture of some variation on the words _comms channel._ Ticker nods in understanding.

“Little Duck’s keeping watch up there,” Eudico motions vaguely upwards, “and Biz is covering for me back in Fortuna, running mission control for both of us. We’re getting you out of here. Would try to patch you into comms myself, but we—”

_—I—_

“—were trying to send you messages earlier and they got intercepted.”

 _And if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be in anywhere near as much trouble and we all wouldn’t be worrying about how much Nef’s figured out,_ she silently adds.

“Guessing ‘Ticker’—” (She makes finger quotes around her name.) “—responded? Not me. _Definitely_ not me, think they have some kind of comms net just in here, you should be fine out there. How much trouble am I in?”

“We’ll figure it out once we get you out of here. Biz, status on that?”

“We have options.” Biz doesn’t sound particularly happy about any of them. “Option one: do what we normally do with the Tenno, trigger the gate’s opening sequence and wait for it to open. Problem with that is, the Corpus _will_ know it’s being opened and they _will_ come en masse if they don’t get confirmation it’s their people opening it. I _might_ be able to falsify confirmation. Otherwise, you’ll need to hold them off while you’re waiting.”

“We can take a few taxmen,” Little Duck says dismissively.

“We can’t risk them recognizing me, and I’m not having you hold off the taxmen by yourself.” Eudico thinks on this briefly and adds, “I’m sure you can, but let’s not test that. Biz, what’s the next option?”

Eudico has faith in Little Duck’s skills, but if there’s too many? If there’s more than one squad beamed down at once, and if they’re beamed in too close? LD is accurate, and reasonably fast, but depending entirely on one person is far from a good idea.

LD makes a slightly offended noise. Biz clears his throat.

“Option two: there’s two coildrives parked nearby. If we drove one into the back of the building—”

“No.”

“Why not?” Eudico can practically hear Little Duck grinning. “I like option two.”

“No, absolutely not, we are _not_ doing this.”

“Do I want to know what you’re talking about?” Ticker asks wryly. 

Eudico had almost forgotten she wasn’t patched in. She’s asking the question, which means she probably does want to know.

“Our options to get you out are activate the opening sequence and hope Biz can fake a check-in, or…”

“Or?”

“Crash a coildrive into the building.” Eudico sighs. “Overriding the controls would take too long—”

“I can override them remotely, if you’d like,” Biz offers unhelpfully. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to control it after that, you or Little Duck will need to drive it manually.”

“—and it’ll be too dangerous both for you and whoever drives it.”

“Dangerous?” LD snorts. “Please. Eudico, if you think driving a coildrive into a building hasn’t been a lifelong dream of mine—”

“Coildrives haven’t been _around_ your entire life.”

“Not the point!”

“Still no.” Eudico pretends to ignore Ticker laughing to herself, and says, “If Biz’s check-in doesn’t fool the muckers, we’ll need to leg it, fast. Are you hurt?”

Ticker freezes. “Well…” She winces. “Yes, and no. Physically, I’m fine.”

If Eudico hadn’t sold her heart long ago, it would sink. As it is, she’s found the sinking feeling is still there even without it.

“But I can’t walk. They did something to my rig.” Ticker laughs again, this time humorlessly. “Probably the sort of thing I should have mentioned much, much earlier. Sorry about that, love.”

Ticker can’t walk. Which explains why she hasn’t gotten up since Eudico got in here, and also rules out the possibility of a quick escape since it’ll take both Eudico and Little Duck to get her out. They won’t be able to travel very far on foot, which means they’ll need to hijack one of the coildrives to get back to Fortuna.

And, it means that they won’t be able to move Ticker very quickly. So really, it all depends on how much Eudico is willing to trust to fate and whether or not Biz can pull this off.

If it was over text, and it wasn’t for his accent—she’d be confident he could.

“Biz, LD,” she says grimly, “Ticker can’t walk. Biz, how confident are you that you can fake a check-in?”

“Better safe than sorry,” Biz reports. “Option two is our best bet. Commencing the hack on the closer one—I’ll get to the next one in a moment. You’ll need a getaway coildrive.”

_“YES!”_

“Little Duck, this should go without saying, be _careful.”_

The only response Eudico gets for a few moments is laughter. Eventually, LD says, “I’m crashing a coildrive into a building. Where’s careful in that?”

Eudico gets the distinct feeling she’s made a mistake.

* * *

The plan does not go off without a hitch. It does, however, go well enough. Little Duck sends the coildrive careening towards the opposite corner of the building, jumps out at the _very_ last second, and busts a hole in the wall. Between the two of them, they get Ticker to the other coildrive, and from there back to Fortuna.

Eudico doesn’t get a chance to talk much about it for some time. Between covering up what she can and explaining away what she can’t, sending a crew out on Nef’s orders to fix things, and making sure Ticker doesn’t get brought in for repo _again_ , she’s… busy. Very.

But eventually, after stopping by Biz’s shop, now occupied by a dusky-headed virmink and a white-breasted one— _one of my Tenno brought in Ruby’s mate late last night. As it turns out, Eudico, the virminks are lesbians_ —Eudico makes it back to Ticker’s. Currently deserted, except for just the cove she wanted to see.

“Ticker,” Eudico greets. “What happened? Didn’t get a chance to ask.”

Ticker waves a hand dismissively. “Slipped up, got caught, won’t happen again. You know how the Temple teaches charity. Don’t regret a thing, except getting caught.”

There are about a million things Eudico wants to say. She says none of them.

Instead, she says, “How did you get caught, and what can we do to keep it from happening again? As far as the taxmen’s records go, you’re long gone offworld.”

Ticker stops pacing, makes an amused noise. “Really? Who’s got all this then?” She gestures vaguely to her shop.

“Someone who, before all this, didn’t exist in the system. Someone who is very similar to you, actually, not that the taxmen’ll pick up on it.”

Ticker can’t see it, but Eudico winks. The sentiment is conveyed nonetheless, because Ticker lets out an amused snort.

“Keep up the good work,” Eudico says instead of everything she wants to say. She turns to leave, but stops. There’s something she’s forgetting.

“Before you go,” Ticker says, “there’s… something I lost, when they came for me. Small, could be anywhere and I know better than to hope Ticker’s gonna get it back, but… it is important to me, and—”

“Wait.” Eudico turns, reaches to her belt. Unhooks the glove, holds it up. “I think this is yours.”

“It is.” Ticker takes it. She doesn’t put it on, instead grips it like a lifeline. “Thank you.”

There are a million things Eudico wants to say, but doesn’t. Ticker is fine, and will continue to be fine. She’s got time to sort through her feelings.

She heads back to her post a few minutes later. She does, however, invite Ticker to girls night first.

**Author's Note:**

> So... oh boy do I have a lot I wanna say. First things first: this was written for the Warframe Secret Santa, which can be found on Twitter [here.](https://twitter.com/WarframeSanta) My secret santa was (and I'm still in shock over this) Tamara Fritz, the voice of Eudico herself. Hope you liked the fic! I had a lot of fun with it, and it _maybe_ got a bit longer than I was planning on but hey, I got it up on Christmas so I'm calling that a win for me. Merry Christmas!
> 
> Now: I just want to say, Fortuna? Means so much to me. I remember hearing about Fortuna at a time where I couldn't play the game, and once I was able to play it again, I jumped in. I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew it was something to do with these people called the Solaris, who were (I was pretty sure) cyborgs and were starting a rebellion against the Corpus. In retrospect, I've always been partial to stories of rebellion, so maybe it's not such a surprise that I immediately got attached.
> 
> We All Lift Together was a _huge_ surprise, and I still listen to the song (and various covers of it) all the time. It's great. And I was riding this high of the best song I've heard in any video game ever when I went to go talk to Eudico.
> 
> I raced through the quest. I've replayed it twice on PS4 on my original Warframe account, and once on PC, and it still hits all the right notes to get my heart pounding and get me all fired up to fight the taxmen and help Fortuna out. It's been over a year, and while my feelings on the rest of the game have been all over the place, Fortuna has always been there for me, and a big part of why I'm so attached to Fortuna is Eudico.
> 
> Eudico is Vox Solaris, the voice of the Solaris, as our good buddy Legs aptly put it. But she's the heart of the Solaris, too. When we first meet her, she's lost the will to fight, convinced herself that it does more harm than good. And maybe, in some cases, it does. But in this one? It's worth it to fight to change things, to make things better. Eudico might have said someone else would have restarted Solaris U if she didn't, and she's probably right, but without her there would be no Solaris United to begin with.
> 
> She's quite possibly one of my all time favorite characters, and you brought her to life and then some. The Fortuna bounties in-game should get repetitive by now. They haven't yet, it's been a year, and I'm Old Mate on PS4 and working up to it on PC. You did amazing with her, and I'll admit it, I _maybe_ freaked out just a little when I learned who my secret santa was. Maybe a lot. Maybe I'm still freaking out writing this now. Take your pick.
> 
> But, interestingly enough, I was in the middle of writing this when I hit a funny little wall called writer's block. Then, I listened to [Bargaining](https://tamarafritz.bandcamp.com/track/bargaining-demo) for the first time. (Link goes to the song on bandcamp, y'all should support her because she did amazing as per usual and the song is AMAZING.) It dragged me over that wall before I even knew what happened, and... honestly? This fic definitely got a lot longer than I planned on, part of why I'm posting it so late, and it wouldn't have been anywhere near as good without your song. In the end, it was only fitting to name my fic after it.
> 
> Merry Christmas, Tamara. I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you for bringing Eudico to life and being a generally inspiring person!
> 
> As for everyone: if you liked this, you should check out some of my other Warframe stuff in the series this is a part of. I have a _lot_ in the works and I really love Solaris United, Steel Meridian, and the Lotus. Merry Christmas if you celebrate, Merry Random Wednesday In December if you don't. You're amazing. Never forget that. <3


End file.
